Moetan

This series will have at least one DVD only episode,
so it's little early to be doing a wrap-up; oddly, we don't
yet know which DVD that episode will be on - in production
order, it was going to be episode 3, but they decided it was
to hot and swapped with episode 6 (which is why the ghost
miko appears in episodes 3 and 7 instead of back-to-back 6-7).
It was still to hot and got replaced with episode 5.5
(we don't know if 5.5 will be on the DVD at all).

Nevertheless:
What is Moetan?
Moetan is a Magical Girl Parody/Gag Comedy
featuring no fewer than 7 magical girls.

Conflict: the magelords of the Magic Kingdom have too
much power to oppose each other directly without mass
destruction, so they fight through champions instead;
these battles normally last until the girls get tired.
(This custom is not widespread, but limited to the top
class mages.) Why the lords are fighting each other
isn't really important.

Characters: one-dimensional.

Character design: Loli (sexualized innocent young girls) and toyetic.

Animation: Consistent average quality;
the only notable animation quirk is Sumi's Hair.
Frequent use of slow pans and animation banks.

Henshin: naked loli.

Jokes:
1. defiance of genre conventions. Example:
Magical Girl 1: "Why do you keep attacking me?"
Magical Girl 2: "Because you won't play with me otherwise."
another example:
Magical Girl: "How do we fight this thing?"
Mascot: "You can't. Magic won't affect it."

2. sarcastic pedo-pandering. Example: the mascots
making puddles of drool when their Girl henshins.
Frequent bath scenes, swimsuit episodes, bathhouse
episode, at least one when-tentacles-attack episode.

3. random insert references from other (old) series:
Macross, Gundam, Ashita no Joe, Ultraman, Kaiju
There are a lot of these and they make the series
a nightmare to translate, since most are quite
obscure.

4. Engrish. Moetan is based on an English language
learning guide, and therefore includes snippets of
English - which the voice actors pronounce phonetically
since they don't know the language. (There is a companion
radio show to the anime starring Sumi and Ruriko in
which they try to interview a girl who doesn't know
Japanese using their English skills.)
The English examples are from fandom and the anime
industry rather than regular phrases.

5. Signs. There is sometimes text in the background that
contains jokes. If the scene cuts and returns, the background
joke changes. Example: "But I'm really a boy; is it still alright?"

6. Meta-storytelling. Example: the anime includes a production
meeting of the people making the anime discussing how they
are to proceed.

Who would watch this?
1. Pedos
2. Anime Otaku
If you aren't one or the other, none of the jokes will make sense -
and the jokes are all there is to Moetan.

-Galen
.

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